Twenty Seven

Twenty seven, to me, stands for a lot of things:

1. 3 to the power of 3
2. My birthdate (last Thursday was the 27th)
3. The number of outs in a standard 9-inning baseball game
4. The number of my favorite hockey player growing up, Darryl Sittler
5. The age at which famous musicians have died (see Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain)
6. Once I complete one more trade, it will also be the number of trades I've completed with fellow bloggers since I started blogging 3 months ago.

3 months at an average of 3x3 trades per month.  I wondered at the start if I would ever have 27 page views, let alone having made 27 trades. 

For some crazy reason, 27 has always hit home for me.  They award medals to people who come 1st, 2nd or 3rd in events, 27th....insert laughter here, nobody remembers what or even who the 27th place finisher is in any event. 

Anniversaries....we know what to get our spouses on the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 5th, 10th, 25th, 50th anniversaries, and so on, but what about the 27th?  Come on, anyone?  Answer at the end....


Did a little digging, here's some players who wear 27 (gotta show some cards, right?)

Still the greatest Leaf in my mind

Sadly, this is not a jersey card of Darryl in a Leaf uniform (I'm still trying to snag one of those).  Still, I like the orange swatch.

current Jay

Brett Cecil has held the number 27 for the past 3 years as a Jay.  Sadly, I think that if he doesn't start to pitch better, he will not be wearing it for much longer.


I'd sooner have the next guy in a Jays uniform wearing the number 27 instead.

Earmarked for the Owl's collection

The Bison would look GREAT in  a Jays uni, but sadly that probably will not happen anytime soon. 


The next guy might have potential for me as a player collection, power hitters who wear 27 are few and far between

Card # 157 towards the insanity

A quick thanks to Brian at Play at the Plate for this card, and possibly a little bit of inspiration to start a collection.

Mike Stanton of the Marlins has some prodigious power (ooh...big words) and in his first full season in the bigs this year he hit 34HR and had 87 RBI. 


















Some other notables to wear 27:

• Catfish Hunter, pitcher with the Oakland A's and New York Yankees.  Number retired by the A's in 1991

• Carlton Fisk, catcher with the Boston Red Sox (he wore 72 in Chicago).  Number retired by the Sox in 2000.

• Vlad Guerrero, outfielder with the Expos/Angels/Rangers/Orioles since 1996.  Not sure if he'll make it to the hall of fame with 2590 hits and 449 HRs (and no WS titles).

Hockey:

• Frank Mahovlich, or as many knew him back in the 50's and 60's "the Big M".  A very popular figure in both Toronto and Montreal through his playing career in the NHL, he was also one of the renegades who jumped to the WHA and played in Toronto for the Toros as well.

• Dave Christian, who was part of the Miracle on Ice team back in 1980 in Lake Placid, wore # 27 for 9 seasons in the NHL with 3 teams.

• Ron Hextall, goalie for the Philadelphia Flyers and the Quebec Nordiques for 12 NHL seasons, has the distinction of being the first goalie to actually score a goal by shooting the puck into the opponent's net

By the way, modern 27th anniversary gifts are .....sculptures...

Thanks for reading, Robert

(Word count not counting blog title and signature: 601)